"HEGEMONE" WAS A VERY PRIMITIVE GREEK GODDESS OF THE SOIL AND GROWING PLANTS, SPECIFICALLY MAKING THEM BLOOM AND BEAR FRUIT. HER NAME MEANS "MASTERY" AND STILL SURVIVES TODAY AS THE WORD FOR "SOVEREIGNTY--HEGEMONY". "ZEUS" IS USUALLY IDENTIFIED AS HER FATHER. THE IDENTITY OF HER MOTHER CHANGES WITH THE STORY, BUT SHE IS USUALLY SAID TO BE THE GODDESS, "EURYNOME. "

SADLY, "HEGEMONE "DISAPPEARED SO EARLY THAT NO RECORD HAS BEEN FOUND HER INDEPENDENT WORSHIP (WE KNOW ONLY OF HER AFTER SHE BECAME ONE OF THE "CHARITIES") AND NO MYTH ABOUT HER SURVIVES, AND WHILE WHAT WE DO KNOW OF HER COMES FROM THE GREEKS, IT IS VERY LIKELY THAT HER ORIGINS ARE OLDER.

TODAY SHE SURVIVES AS ONE OF THE IRREGULAR RETROGRADE MOONS OF JUPITER, DISCOVERED IN 2003 AND NAMED IN 2005.

The Sun was the son of Tengri and the Earth Goddess. Therefore, He circled between the two. The Turks and Mongols honoured the power and vital force of the Sun God. Huns, leaving their villages in the morning, welcomed the rising sun and bowed towards Him. Turks would turn towards the sunrise when praying. They worshipped the Sun because Tengri supervised the creation of the world by the Sun’s rays, which are but strings linking the spirits of plants to the Sun. Solar rays were considered a medium for transmitting the life force sent by Tengri to the infant. A vivid example is the legend of the birth of An-Lushan by a Shamaness, from Ashide, a noble Turkic clan. He became famous for rebelling against the Tan dynasty of imperial China. At his conception it was said that a ray of light penetrated the yurt. “The famous pra-mother of the Mongols, Alan-Goa, who belonged to the clan of Cengiz-Khan, conceived from a ray that penetrated the yurt through a smoke hole.”11 The Turks associated the Sun’s path in the sky with the flight of a fiery bird or a winged horse. Winged horses as symbols of the Sun were widely used in the cosmological myths of Turkic peoples. In addition to horses and birds, other animals (rams, deer, bulls) were also connected with the Sun. Large numbers of domestic artifacts decorated with solar symbols are found throughout Eurasia and testify to the wide distribution of the Sun cult amongst the Turks. Such images are seen in large numbers on ceramic vessels and female earrings.